I don't know about you, but I love poetry—adventure poems, Lenten poems, cheese poems, sehnsuchty poems, tree poems, heart poems, shark poems. A good friend and I are getting together this weekend to read poetry together, and maybe I will bring this one along.
“Do you write . . . stories?”“No stories. Oood write . . . pretty words. Words about this.” He pointed at his own chest.“Words about your heart?” Janner asked. “Poems?”“Ha! Yes. Oood write poems.”Janner was speechless. Not only did trolls live in castles, they wrote poetry? ...Oood cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Oood say poem called—called—in boys’ words it called ‘Rain and Fire.’ Right?”“Right,” Janner repeated.After a moment of silence, during which the sun broke the horizon and a chorus of birds sang, Oood closed his eyes and spoke in a voice that was at once soft and booming:
Grrk. Glog-glogackwoggy!Grrk. Glog-glogacksnock-jibbit,Ooog, wacklesnodspadgenoggy,Nacketbrigglesweeeeeem! Grrk. Squibbit?
When it was over, the birds had fallen silent. Janner found that, even though the sounds had been strange and, to his ears, unpleasant, Oood’s rich voice and passionate recital had stirred his heart.
Discussion: What's your favorite poem?Have you ever written any poetry? What about troll poetry? (Or ridgerunner poetry, for that matter! Fruit!)Activity: Try your hand at writing some pretty words about your heart—or about tacos or fruit or the sound of the wind or whatever else you can think of. If you feel like sharing, we'd love to hear it. :-)